future is female from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/women-march-2018-women-s-march-3422243/
I might not make a lot of friends with this article but I think it needs to be said, mostly because I’m pretty over this idea that men are somehow inferior to their female counterparts.
Earlier today, former President Barack Obama was speaking in Singapore when he got onto the idea that if women ran the world, then the world would be vastly improved. I disagree.
Vehemently.
Before I get called a sexist I want to make something very clear. I think women bring very important qualities to the workplace. By and large, women tend to be a bit more organized than men, their ability to remember details seems to come easier than their male counterparts, and multitasking is less of a struggle for women than it is for men.
I’ve seen this demonstrated multiple times personally, and as it turns out, there is a scientific reason behind this. Women’s brains function in a more organized fashion than men’s do. Men tend to be improvisers while women tend to be more plan based. These levels of organization vary from person to person, of course, but the majority of the time, women tend to be able to make order out of chaos more rapidly than men.
This is a great thing, but does that mean women are better suited to run things than men?
Not necessarily. There have been a plethora of superb women leaders from Margaret Thatcher to Nikki Haley. These two examples alone are proof that women can really kick untold amounts of ass when placed at the front. However, the same brain that causes women to organize faster also causes them to become overwhelmed faster, and give in to emotion quicker.
And here is where I’m going to make some people mad. It shouldn’t, seeing as how this is all scientific stuff, but it does for some reason.
Let’s discuss testosterone vs estrogen.
The improvisational bent that men tend to lean toward allows them to work better in the chaos. The testosterone hormone that courses through our bodies makes us more aggressive and assertive. Our willingness to be confrontational is higher. We’re less likely to be pushed around because we’re more likely to make the pusher face consequences. When overwhelmed, we feel the same anxieties and fears that women do, but we’re less likely to break down because of them. This doesn’t mean we don’t dive into negative behaviors (we definitely do) but those behaviors lend more toward domination than surrender.
Testosterone muddles emotional connectivity in the brain resulting in less empathy. If it seems like men are sometimes so logical to the point of being cold, that’s why.
I’ve been in many situations where I was looking at a problem our society was having and issuing what I thought was a very sound and reasonable way of solving the problem, only to be told my females that what I was talking about was “mean” or they displayed an inordinate amount of sympathy with the people or situations that I thought were directly causing the problem.
But cold logic has its place in our society and should speak very loudly when it comes to solving problems whereas emotional connection may exacerbate the problems. Crying over children slain in mass shootings is a very reasonable and good thing to do, but those tears won’t solve the problem, nor will the rage that sets in once the sadness and grief wear off. Yet so often we see policy positions suggested in moments of rage that make no sense and help no one, and they’re taken very seriously by people who empathize with those who are angry.
Logically, by the numbers, we can see that stripping guns from people helps no one and only increases the chances of someone being shot by significant percentages.
(READ: Over 98% of Mass Shootings Have Occurred Within Gun-Free Zones According to FBI Stats)
Yet, many think of the dead children and the grieving parents and see the anguished tears and rage and we can’t help but feel moved by it. Many are so moved by it that they ditch logic in order to show solidarity with those in their darkest moments. It might seem noble, but logically you’re opening the door for more kids to die.
Statistically speaking, men are going to arrive at this conclusion much faster than women. Even if a woman agrees, she may find herself becoming annoyed or angry with a man for stating something so plainly, especially if the emotional turmoil is fresh.
What does this all mean?
Honestly? Not much.
As I stated earlier, there are plenty of examples of women leaders who really made the difference when it came to the people or countries they were leading. We also definitely have a plethora of examples of great leaders from the male column.
We also have examples of how members of both sexes can make horrible leaders.
The real conclusion we can come to is that Obama was wrong. If women ran the world things wouldn’t necessarily be better. It really all boils down to the individual. It’s doubtless that a person’s sex will help bring certain qualities to the table over others, but at the end of the day, it’s the quality of the person that really makes the difference. That’s not even considering the fact that each individual person may display qualities typically associated with the opposite sex.
In a lineup between someone like Haley vs. someone like Pete Buttigieg, you’d undoubtedly vote for Haley. America has already proven that it would have rather voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton during a time when feminism was greatly popular.
When deciding who is a better leader, sex doesn’t predetermine success.